Joseph Warren Revere (May 17, 1812 – April 20, 1880) was a career United States Navy and Army officer. He was the grandson of American Revolutionary War figure Paul Revere.
He was an amateur artist and autobiographer, publishing two novels: A Tour of Duty in California (1849) and Keel and Saddle (1872). Both novels include memoirs of his experience traveling in the military. He was involved in the African Slave Trade Patrol, the Second Seminole War, the Mexican-American War, and the Civil War.
He was heavily involved in the 1846-1847 Conquest of California, wherein American troops invaded Alta California. Afterwards, he created a plantation in Rancho San Geronimo (near San Francisco, California), which used forced labor of Coast Miwok workers.
During the American Civil War, Revere was a Union brigadier general who was court-martialed after the 1863 Battle of Chancellorsville. Revere challenged the court-martial and published multiple pamphlets in attempts to clear his reputation. In 1862, during the Civil War, Revere converted to Catholicism.
He completed several tours of duty, during which he travelled to Mexico, Cuba, Liberia, France, Germany, Greece, Egypt, Portugal, Spain, Algeria, and Italy.
His 1854 Gothic Revival mansion is historically preserved for educational tours at Fosterfields Living Historical Farm in Morristown, New Jersey.
Early life and naval career Joseph Warren Revere was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 17, 1812New England Historic Genealogical Society. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register. Boston: The New England Historic Genealogical Society. to Lydia LeBaron Goodwin and Dr. John Revere; he was a grandson of Paul Revere. The Reveres descended from a French Huguenot family. He was named after General Joseph Warren, the famous doctor and general in the American Revolution, who was a close friend of his grandfather.
In 1826, the fourteen-year-old Revere joined the United States Naval School in New York. Two years later, Revere joined the United States Navy as a midshipman. His 25 years of tours of duty took him to Europe, the Pacific, and the Baltic States. He travelled to Singapore and met Czar Nicholas I of Russia. He was a polyglot, which aided him in his expeditions.
Some time in the 1830s, Revere fought to annex Florida during the Second Seminole War, on a mosquito fleet near Florida's coast. He afterwards commanded an anti-piracy fleet in the West Indies. Revere was present in Spain for one of the Carlist Wars.
Between 1835 and 1845, he was aboard the frigate USS Constitution.
In 1837, he met Rosanna Duncan Lamb in Boston. They both had grandparents who were soldiers during the American Revolution. The courtship would be delayed due to Revere joining the United States Exploring Expedition in 1838, the first American squadron to circumnavigate the globe. He rejoined Lamb in 1840 for a brief time, before returning to the expedition. By 1841, Revere was promoted to lieutenant. In an unknown year, Revere reportedly saved the British HMS Ganges from shipwreck, for which Revere was "presented with a sword of honor by the governor-general of India."
On October 4, 1842, Rosanna Duncan Lamb (April 16, 1818 - July 26, 1910) married Joseph Warren Revere in Boston. They had 5 children, although the first 3 died during childhood: John Revere (1844–1849), Frances Jane Revere (1849–1859), and Thomas Duncan Revere (1853–1856). The youngest two were lawyer Paul Revere (1856–1901) and bankerVOGT BROS., COMPLETE Morris County New Jersey, DIRECTORY for 1897-1898 . Page 3 local Morristown advertisement of "A. L. Revere" that matches time period. 1898, published by Vogt. Bros. Augustus Lefebvre Revere (1861–1910), who both lived through adulthood.
In 1846, Revere was deeply involved in the American Conquest of California, part of the Mexican-American War. On June 15, 1846, a small group of immigrant American settlers captured the small Mexican garrison at Sonoma, declared the independence of California from Mexico by proclaiming the California Republic, and raised the Bear Flag.Walker p. 148 On the morning of July 9, 1846, 70 U.S. naval troops arrived at Yerba Buena (San Francisco), lowered the Bear Flag in Portsmouth Square, and raised the American flag in its place. Later that day, Revere repeated the flag replacement at Sonoma. This ended the brief 25-day existence of the California Republic, which had controlled a localized area in and around San Francisco.Walker p. 148
In 1846, Revere patented Rancho San Geronimo, 8,701 acres of land seized during the Mexican-American War. Revere created a plantation at Rancho San Geronimo, introducing potatoes to the area and selling timber. According to the Sonoma Museum, Revere enslaved Coast Miwok people, native to the Marin County area, and used their "forced...labor" to operate the plantation.San Geronimo Valley Historical Society, "A brief history of potato farming in the #sangeronimovalley", May 1, 2020. However, two months later, the Army transferred Revere to San Diego, and Revere "is said to have left the property in the care of a Native-American [presumably Coast Miwok] foreman."
Circa 1847, Revere continued to invade Mexican territory in the Mexican–American War. He was commended for his bravery in battle.
A Tour of Duty in California In 1849, Rosanna Revere gave birth to Frances Jane Revere. The same year, Revere published his first autobiographical book, titled A Tour of Duty in California: Including a Description of the Gold Region: and an Account of the Voyage Around Cape Horn; with Notices of Lower California, the Gulf and Pacific Coasts, and the Principal Events Attending the Conquest of the Californias. It was edited by Joseph N. Balestier, a U.S. consul of Southeast Asia, who was his uncle by marriage, though Balestier refers to Revere as "my friend" in the foreword. The book includes illustrations and lithographs by Revere as well as his original submission for the Great Seal of California. Revere dedicated the book to John Y. Mason, secretary of the Navy 1844–1849, stating "[his] able and upright discharge of his public duties has won for him the respect and applause of his countrymen." The memoir was advertised in the Boston Evening Transcript, the Charleston Courier, the Baltimore Sun, The Living Age, The United States Democratic Review, and the Richmond Enquirer. The Boston Evening Transcript heralded the novel for vividly describing California as "the new land of promise."
While living on the Rancho in California, Revere befriended Irish immigrant Timothy "Old Tim" Murphy. Revere states, "I have often hunted [deer] with Don Timoleo Murphy and his pack of [grey]hounds, and a more gallant sport cannot be found in the wide world." Although he lived alongside Californios and Native tribes of California, Revere scorned their customs, referring to them as "the most wretched of mankind." After attending a Pui Day (Feast Day), Revere states,Like most savages, [the Indians of California] reason with a rude but true philosophy, that the loss of a life so hard and precarious as theirs is little to be regretted...To give them civil rights, on an equality with the whites, would be more absurd than to grant such rights to children under ten years of age...When it is remembered, that small-pox is not the only desolating disease which follows in the wake of the white man, and that his rum has proved among our Indians as fatal as his natural disorders, it is very clear, that unless measures be promptly taken to protect and preserve the inoffensive natives of California, the present generation will live to read the epitaph of the whole race.In A Tour of Duty, Revere also demonstrates his support of Manifest destiny: he states that the "Anglo-Saxon race...seems destined to possess the whole of the North American Continent."
Circa 1849, Revere's close friend Rodman Price visited Revere's Rancho San Geronimo plantation and was impressed. On December 28, 1849, Price paid Revere $7,500 to purchase half the land, with $2,500 up front. The two also agreed to split the profits of timber exports from the property.
Possible affair
Circa 1849, Revere temporarily received housing in San Rafael, California (although he had his own Rancho at this point). The landlord was British geologist and artist James Gay Sawkins, then the husband of Octavia "Rosa" Sawkins, a British teacher raised in the West Indies.
Witnesses described seeing Sawkins and Revere sitting together on a hammock, frequently meeting in Sawkins's room, and visiting the house of Chapita Miranda together (described during the court proceeding as "a house of ill fame," "an improper place").
On November 26, 1849, James Sawkins entered his home and greeted Revere with a handshake, noticing he was "trembling and cold." Sawkins testified:Entering my wife's room, she was sitting in a rocking chair with her head inclined down. Putting my hand on her table I asked her what was the matter. That she received with an expression of countenance I never saw her before. "James, I am no longer your wife; don't come near me; don't touch me; hate me, for I hate you. I will never live with you again." James said he ran to a nearby Mr. Murphy and asked what had happened. He claimed Mr. Murphy led him to the veranda and said, "Chloroform or some damnable drug has been given to your poor wife." When James found that the laudanum bottle in the medicine cabinet was empty, he asked his wife what became of it and she said she drank it, i.e. attempted suicide. James Sawkins "became alarmed for her mind," because he recalled her mother had also had some type of psychosis.Naval Board of Inquiry, Case Number 1238, April 15, 1850. Available through Morris County Park Commission's Fosterfields Joseph Warren Revere Documents in Subject Research Files.
The next morning, Rosa did not allow James to force her into her room, leading to a physical altercation in which both fell to the ground. Rosa left the home. James and Revere set out via horseback to find her, but did not succeed. They searched again at dawn.
Three days later, James led a search party into the woods, where a carman informed James that Rosa had escaped to Pacheco, California. James brought Rosa back to the house and promised to get her a lawyer so that a divorce could be filed.
The following day, James began to suspect that Rosa Sawkins and Revere had had an affair. Rosa asked James not to injure Revere, blaming herself for her actions and mental health.
A Naval Board of Inquiry composed of officer James Glynn, officer Charles W. Pickering, and judge William E. Levy convened on the USS Warren to "inquire into the truth of the serious allegations" against Revere. He was charged with "having deprived Mr. James G. Sawkins of his wife," Rosa Sawkins.
James Sawkins claimed that Rosa Sawkins said,I gave myself up to Revere, what passed I scarcely know, but remorse was too great to bear. I flew to the Laudinum bottle and emptied it at one draught in the hopes of killing myself. Oh, that I had died, but now I love him; yes, James, to the bottom of my soul and I will live for him alone.The court case was complicated by the discovery that James G. Sawkins had another wife whom he married at the age of 18 while she was 35, and the couple had two daughters.
Rosa Sawkins was denied work as a teacher as a result of the case.
On May 20, 1850, Revere wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of the Navy objecting to the allegations made by the court of inquiry. The Navy replied that Revere's objections were "well founded."